FATIGUE 2007, the sixth International conference to be organised by the the Engineering Integrity Society's Durability and Fatigue Committee, was held at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge on 26th – 28th March, 2007. A record number of delegates attended the event, an increase of approximately 50% on the last Fatigue conference, also held at Queens’ in 2003.
This upsurge in interest can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, an impressive array of technical sponsors and co-sponsoring institutions ensured maximum publicity for the event during the previous 12 month period. Secondly, a strong International Technical Committee (ITC) was convened on this occasion, drawing from leading academic and industrial practitioners in the fatigue community. The ITC, together with high profile Plenary and Keynote speakers, undoubtedly attracted many people. The individual members of the ITC provided much needed help to the Conference Organising Committee, reviewing papers in the preparation stages and offering their services as Session Chairs during the meeting.
The breadth of topics covered during the technical sessions was notably extensive, exemplified by the three Plenary papers. Jean-Louis Chaboche from ONERA, France, long regarded for his contributions towards understanding high temperature damage accumulation under creep-fatigue interaction, provided the opening presentation outlining the latest experimental and modelling efforts supporting complex thermo-mechanical fatigue assessment. It had been clear from the original “call for papers” that interest in TMF and multiaxial fatigue evaluation is clearly alive and well across European laboratories.
The second Plenary, provided by Gregorz Glinka of Waterloo University in Canada, reviewed his ongoing research into modelling fatigue crack growth behaviour. Impressive progress has been made through the collaborative efforts of a multidisciplinary team supported by the US Navy, offering excellent predictions of measured crack growth in operational structures subjected to random load cycles. These models are receiving much attention amongst the fatigue community, not least because they bring into question the contribution, or otherwise, of crack closure – a topic of lively debate during questions!
The final Plenary speaker, Paul Bowen of Birmingham University, described the efforts of the aerospace industry and Rolls-Royce in particular to design and manufacture safety critical rotating components from metal matrix composites. After a 15year development phase, continuous fibre reinforced titanium alloys are approaching service applications, bringing with them unique demands for fatigue assessment and component lifing.
During the course of the meeting, selected speakers were considered for the EIS Durability Prize, awarded to the best “young” presenter. In this context, current students or engineers who have recently entered employment after a period of study or training were deemed eligible. A panel of judges was assembled from the ITC and they eventually offered 2 awards – recognising the quality of presentations from one Overseas and one UK based presenter. Congratulations go to Toshio Osada of Japan and Dr Karen Perkins of Swansea University respectively. Their papers will be reproduced in this and future editions of the EIS Journal.
The organisers wish to record their gratitude to all of the presenters, delegates and sponsors for ensuring the success of the meeting. For the first time in the history of this meeting, the technical papers were provided to the delegates inelectronic format. In this respect, the organisers are indebted to the software design service provided by Secure Data Services Group who helped design a wonderful CD as the conference proceedings (extra copies are available from EIS).
The EIS would like to extend special thanks to Catherine Pinder for her diligence in organising this and previous conferences.
Enquiries contact Catherine Pinder
Email Contact
Background
The Engineering Integrity Society was formed in 1985 and has established itself as a professional body dedicated to the engineering integrity of manufactured products. The Society has since made a recognisible and significant contribution to advancing Engineering Science.
The primary objective of the EIS is to stimulate the exchange of ideas and information between engineers and technologists, whose interests lie in designing, developing or manufacturing products that must achieve high standards of integrity. The EIS provides a unique forum for industrial engineers to exchange ideas and experience by holding major National and International conferences, organising and co-ordinating specialist task groups, and presenting regular technical seminars.
The society is a registered charity. It comprises three groups: Durability & Fatigue, Simulation Test & Measurement and Noise Vibration & Harshness. Each group has its own organising committee, with representatives on the EIS Council. Financial support is provided by 34 Sponsor Companies.